Sunday, December 29, 2013

Happy New Year from The Gossamer Tearoom!

Dearest Dear Friends,
I'm wishing all of you a Most Wonderful New Year's Eve, New Year's Day and the Very Most Amazing 2014 you could possibly imagine!

I'm participating in the Take a Word Challenge this week and the prompt is "New Year".  Please take a moment to see the other contributions to this challenge!

A Romantic New Year's Eve in
The Garden of Giant Roses

I'm sending biggest New Year hugs to you all!

Best wishes,

Betty

(All images from my personal collection, with the exception of the background from Tumble Fish Studios.)

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

A Christmas Eve Adventure...

Hello to you, Dear Friends!
Thank you for visiting with me here at The Tearoom on this lovely Christmas Eve,

Tonight, we take a special trip!  Victorienne has been such a good girl all year and so we have promised her a special Christmas trip!  Tonight, her Daddy and I take her on a special overnight trip by starship to Paris!

This is the photo her Daddy took of her just before
we left to go to the Aerodome by taxi.
Doesn't she look just adorable in her new
taffeta cape?
(Don't forget to click the pictures to see them a bit larger!)

We arrive at the Aerodome late at night to begin our journey...


Here is Victorienne, 
waiting patiently to begin her adventure!
As you can see, it has begun to snow...

When the time comes to go, 
her Daddy picks her up and carries her
as everyone boards the ship....

Her Daddy is so good to her and lets her have the window seat!
Thank you, Daddy!

The Starship Etoile is full of interesting people tonight!

Isn't it fun to see so many different people when you are travelling?

Of course this is the deluxe flight to Paris tonight,
so the dinner is catered by Dalloyau of Paris!

We start with these luscious amuse bouches,
Mini-Gaufres Salées
Artichoke with pepper sauce and black olive tapenade,
salmon gravlax with whipped cream and smoked salt,
chicken mousse and cream whipped with mushrooms,
all on mini waffle bites.


We then proceed to this,
as beautiful to the palate as it is to the eyes:
a delicate fennel mousse,
surrounded by tender asparagus and
topped with lobster.

And for dessert,
something absolutely fun,
but still pure Dalloyau style:
(Saint-Honoré Pops!)
The classic dessert Saint-Honoré,
puff pastry, filled with cream chantilly,
topped with melted caramel,
now made in miniature form and
served on a stick!

And to drink?
Of course, there is champagne for the grown-ups!
And for the little ones, orange juice with a splash
of grenadine in the bottom to make it festive!




(Be sure and click the arrow to watch the film!)

How lovely that we get to see this vintage film during our flight!  Victorienne is entranced by the dancers!  She asks me, "Mommy, when we get to Paris, will you buy me some scarves like that so I can dance in the snow in the Luxembourg Garden?"  How can I tell her "No"?  I know it is something she will want to show her dance teacher when she returns home from her trip!

Even though she might be too excited to sleep, I manage
to convince Victorienne that she shouldn't miss getting to sleep
in the sleeping compartment!
I tell her what my mother used to tell me,
"You don't have to go to sleep, just close your eyes."

She's not the only one too excited to sleep.
Her Daddy and I sit up all night, 
looking out the window of the starship.

Paris is sleeping under a blanket of snow as we land...

Victorienne does not wake up as her Daddy carries her into the hotel
and we put her to sleep in a bed in our City of Dreams....





On Christmas Morning, we wake up in a beautiful hotel.


Outside, the snow is still falling...


Inside, it is a warm and happy Christmas Morning!


Victorienne begins her Christmas Day with
a big mug of hot chocolate in bed!


We venture out of our warm and cozy hotel room,
The Luxembourg Gardens are not far away,
and so, dressed in our warmest clothes, hats and gloves,
we leave our footprints
in the fluffy snow.

Wisely, Victorienne has decided that it would just be too cold
to dance in the snow in anything other than her 
new flowered coat and purple gloves and beret!

Thank you for joining us on our Christmas adventure!
We are wishing you all a Christmas Eve
 and Christmas Day filled with magic!

Images used in the collages for today's post from
vintage postcards from my personal collection.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

The Dollhouse at Night

Today, we take another tour of The Little House of Sometimes,
 this time, at night.
(The first two photos are ones that I took,
but the rest are the very creative work of my darling Mr. V!)

Charlotte Framboise, Evelynne Rose, Peanutbutter the Elephant
and Nutkin the Squirrel love getting toasty in front of
the fire in the upstairs sitting room.

The Kitty Family and The Doggie Family are snuggled around
the fire in the livingroom downstairs just before bed...

The little kitchen is done making tea and oatmeal and toast
for the day...


Everyone has gone to bed now...

It is quiet here now and even the embers in the fireplace
have gone out.

Upstairs in the sitting room, all is peaceful.

But, quietly, if we tiptoe...

...so as not to awaken...

...two little girls are having sweet dreams...

...Oops!  It looks like we caught Charlotte Framboise still awake!

In the attic, all of the pets are cozy in their nests.

One last peek at the should-be-sleeping
Mademoiselle Charlotte!

Thank you for visiting us again!


Wednesday, December 4, 2013

A Tour of The Dollhouse

Today, we go on a tour of The Little House of Sometimes, the dollhouse project I've been working on lately.



First, we visit the kitchen! We love our sunny mornings here, making oatmeal and tea!  (I made all the appliances and corner shelf with cardboard, glue and paper.  The wallpaper in this room is made from pages from an old shorthand magazine from the 1940's that my mother subscribed to.  She kept all the issues she received.  I love the way the little black squiggles look!)

Let's stroll through the doorway into the cozy livingroom...
We love how warm we are here in this room,
even on the gloomiest of days!

(I made the corner table and fireplace from cardboard, glue and paper.  I added a battery-operated candle to the fireplace for the look of warmth.  Bottlecaps make cute picture frames.  The chair and ottoman are a pin cushion set that belonged to my mother.  The white swan vase was one of my flea-market finds.  The tiny china tea-set belonged to my grandmother. Flocked decorative paper in different shades papers the walls and carpets the floor.)

We are so comfortable here, just dreaming our dreams...

Now, for a tour of the second floor...

Two little beds for two little girls.  Evelynne Rose and Charlotte Framboise sleep here.  (I made the beds from cardboard, glue and paper.  Pillows and mattresses are made from some of my mother's old handkerchiefs, the ones that were worn at the edges.  I made the comforters from printed silk and the edge of the re-purposed curtain I made into the facade, as I wrote about in this post.)


...we peek through the transom above the door,
into the cozy sitting room...


...and through the curtained door we go...


Such a cozy place to stay on warm spring mornings and cold winter nights. (More pictures, framed in bottlecaps decorate the walls. I made another fireplace for this room, with a battery-operated candle, similar, but not exactly like the fireplace for the livingroom downstairs.  I made the settee from scraps of eggplant-colored crushed velvet and cardboard.  The silver tea-set on the mantlepiece is one I've owned for years!  Lokta paper in vivid purple makes a rich-looking carpet.)

 
So warm and happy in the sunshine!
(The pastry tray in the foreground is made from an old doll's
sugar bowl that had lost its lid and I covered with paper and made
a tray to go on the top.)

In a third floor attic room, we keep our collections...
old keys, 
broken stop watches,
tiny spoons,
buttons from an imaginary elevator
and
other precious objects...

In the final room in the attic, a special room for all of the pets!
(I made nests for them from fluffy cloud-like batting
inside decorative cupcake papers and a vintage souvenir
tea cup from The Queen Mary!)

Here we are in the garden in front of our lovely house!

It is always sunny here and the flowers and trees
are always in bloom.

(The lawn is made from lokta paper and bordered with flocked paper, to mimic the parterre garden designs we saw at the Tuileries and the courtyard of the Musée Carnavalet in Paris.  I made a small flowering tree from a decorative cupcake paper, some white beans, glue and a vintage sprig of little paper flowers.  The purple flowers are paper hydrangeas that I had left over from having made favors for our wedding.  I used an old, chipped soap dish for the pool in the center of the garden and a glass bottle top makes a pretty, flower-shaped fountain.  I found some little black rocks in our yard to use in the garden.  The heart shaped pool at the front has a small, moss-covered rock in the center for Mr. Snappy the turtle to sun on.  I made the topiary tea party garden by covering old, mis-matched porcelain doll's dishes with green lokta paper and glue!)


Thank you so much for visiting with us today!

Won't you please come back soon to visit
the dollhouse at night?